Monday, August 15, 2016

Assclowns of the Week #102: Orange is the New Fat edition

Hi ho, Potterinos! As we enter the final stretch of this Salvador Dali election cycle, one has to wonder if both the Republican and Democratic parties have completely lost their collective minds or if they've even had possession of their faculties in the last generation.
Indeed, it seems as if this entire general election cycle was scripted by David Lynch for a Pirandello Theater of the Absurd production and adapted by Mike (Idiocracy) Judge. To wit:
NJ Gov. Chris Christie (5) for knowing all too well about his spontaneous production of Bridge On the River Crybaby; Jon Voight (10) for defending Donald Trump (1, 6) for his 2nd Amendment remedy and ex-Toronto Mayor Rob Ford (9) for some wonderful right wing projection from the grave. So pile on aboard the omnibus of Regression as we review these top 10 assclowns and much, much more!

10) Jon Voight

When people say of liberal celebrities, "They should just work and shut up about politics," Jon Voight is the kind of celebrity at whom they should aim their invective. The former actor-turned Hollywood & Vine madman had once stumped for McGovern and protested the Vietnam War. But somewhere along the way, or right around the time we elected a black man as President, the Midnight Birther burst a blood vessel.

And his latest political stunt proves that, with right wing nut jobs, Koolaid is actually thicker than blood. Voight has been a vocal supporter of Trump for over a year, as is his right to be. But one would think that even a rabid right winger like Voight would think twice about supporting a guy who's repeatedly badmouthed his daughter, progressive icon Angelina Jolie. And Voight's op-ed in the virtual pages of Breitbart (naturally) actually backed up Trump after he'd called on "2nd Amendment people" to take care of his Hillary Clinton problem.

This was Voight's reaction when he was cornered at a restaurant and asked to explain this bizarre op-ed. It's the exact moment that Voight transformed himself from a respected actor/conservative activist into a street corner lunatic. Will someone please admit this 77 year-old relic into a nursing home?

9) The late Rob Ford

Yeah, yeah, he's been dead since spring. Yeah, yeah, this is old news. But this full, rereleased video of Rob Ford smoking crack back in February 2013 bears repeating. And, let's face it, his very election as mayor of Canada's largest city was indisputably a low point for that nation's political IQ. If you ever play it, much of this video is unintelligible and censored of obscenities.
But what strikes me about this video is the sight of Rob Ford, the sitting mayor of Toronto, Canada, legs splayed, stomach hanging out, shirttail out, sucking on a glass crack pipe while calling former prize fighter and future Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a "fat dick." It's the epitome of right wing projection and cluelessness. And the crack whore narrating the video was praising Ford, as he was smoking crack, for his devotion to children and families, betraying the overall intelligence quotient of your right wing North American voter.

8) Katrina Pierson

You're really not very good at this, are you, Katrina?

In a masterpiece of right wing revisionist history packed into a few seconds, Katrina Pierson, Trump's main spokeswoman, actually said that Afghanistan was "Obama's war" and that we'd never entered that country until he was elected President.

Yes, she actually said that.

No, really, she did.

And the look of amazement on the CNN anchor's face when she made this amazing Michele Bachmann-class historical gaffe is alone worth sitting through the compressed four and a half minutes of painfully burning stupid. And when you see Trump organ donors such as Pierson yakking to one talking head after another and proving she has no intellectual advantage over a department store mannequin, you have to wonder what other idiots the Cheese Puff Jesus would put on his Cabinet and the Supreme Court.

7) Peter Daou

There are several rules for journalism or there should be:

Never punch upward. It takes something off your shots. Here's another: Stop masquerading as an independent, objective journalist while shamelessly and obliviously pimping for the same crooked right wing politician for whom you used to work (And no, Petey, disclaimers at the end of articles make for lousy fig leaves). Apparently, these lessons will forever be lost on aspiring journalist Peter Daou, who viciously slanders and libels Maureen Dowd on both Twitter and his shitty little perch at some online rag called Blue Nation Review. That much became obvious when he posted a scurrilous, sputtering screed on his byline (one, apparently, of a series, his rage at Dowd's fixation on the Clintons betraying projection for his fixation on her) in accusing Dowd of racism for calling out Obama and the Clintons in an entirely factual August 13th op-ed.

As I told this blubber-lipped baboon on Twitter last night right before he blocked me, he must be trying like a one nut on his honeymoon, to quote Robert Penn Warren, for that Press Secretary gig in the Clinton presidency that'll never come to be. I guess that kind of envy comes from the fact that while he's toiling away at Blue Nation Review in the hind end of cyberspace, Dowd's been with the NY Times for upwards of a quarter century and has a Pulitzer Prize to show for her efforts. Dowd may be at least a useful idiot to anti Trumpers and Berniecrats but, unlike Peter Daou, one thing she will never be is a political Cassandra.

6) Donald Trump

Well, gee, Donald, if you want the media to contact you, you have to
stop banning it from your rallies.

In a magnificent series of Twitter rants on Sunday that was nearly as incoherent with choked rage as a Joe Dave Chadwick "book review", Donald Trump excoriated the NY Times for some unfriendly articles they've written about him of late. Among his charges: They didn't contact him for corroboration, which somehow I doubt. How many times do we read on a daily basis, "So-and-so did not respond to requests for comment" regardless of the prestige of the outlet? And the Trump campaign, especially, has been even more furtive and paranoid about the media than the rest.

Oh, and after banning the WaPo, Politico, the right wing National Review and countless other outlets from attending his Two Minutes Hates, Cheetos Jesus has threatened to ban the Gray Lady, as well. Which will just give her even more incentive to write whatever she wants about him. Well, at least Mike Pence believes in freedom of the press... as long as they're exposing Hillary Clinton and not his bloated vestigial twin Trump.

One thing he'll never be is Trump's Transportation Secretary, if the allegation made by one of his ex staffers is to be believed. In a document filed in New Jersey federal court, a Christie aide was supposed to have texted another that Christie "flat out lied" about him or his staff knowing of or getting involved in the 2013 Bridgegate scandal that brought traffic on the GWB to a standstill. That would be the same scandal over which Christie had spent over a million taxpayer bucks so a Christie-friendly law firm (rather than an objective court) could find him innocent.

Considering what a brash, rude vindictive asshole Christie has been all his life, it's the richest form of schadenfreude to see Donald Trump treating him like a week-old cum rag: Trump's used Christie as his errand boy, told him seconds after getting Christie's endorsement, "You go down" and "Get on a plane and go home" and hogged an umbrella all to himself while Christie stood in the rain.

In other words, Donald Trump is Chris Christie's karma for being such a snarling, lying asshole his entire life.

4) Claire McCaskill

Wow. Just... wow.
Watching politicians and wouldbe politicians during this election cycle is somewhat akin to being the only adult elementary school playground monitor. Because when Democrats lower themselves to abysmal Republican levels of childishness by playing the "I know what you are but what am I?" game, it's not fun for anyone but the pundits and satirists.
Recently, Sen. Claire McCaskill went on Fox "News" (although God only knows why) to answer Donald Trump's ridiculous charges of Obama founding ISIS. So what did Claire say in response? That Trump and "his buddy" Putin are actually the founders of ISIS. Which is a marvelous bit of projection since it could be more plausibly argued that Claire's Goldwater Girl helped found ISIS largely through her military adventurism in Libya that provided the next phase in the Daesh terror network's revolution, namely in Syria. It could also be more accurately stated that Obama taking three years to get us out of Iraq even violating SOFA by redrawing Baghdad's city lines, helped to stoke sectarian anger that also fueled ISIS and ISIL. Which, of course, Claire doesn't mention.
Claire doesn't mention a lot of shit in this interview with Chris Wallace.
Shut the fuck up, Claire.

3) Paul Manafort

Russian anti-corruption investigators recently discovered a cache of documents, including hand-written ledgers, that show the extent of Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort's business dealings with Russian strongmen and oligarchs. Apparently, Manafort had an office in Kiev until this past May. In the handwritten ledgers was a notation describing a payment to Manafort to the tune of $18,000,000, money that his shyster, naturally, is saying his client never received. It ought to be mentioned that Manafort's biggest client at that time was Viktor Yanukovych, the deposed pro-Russian dictator of the Ukraine and that the payouts were to influence Russian elections.

And, lest you think this collusion and corruption extends no further than the Republicans, think again. Since 2014, one of the Ukraine's biggest natural gas companies has sitting on its board no less than the Vice President's son, Hunter Biden, a company that has been accused of having tens of millions of dollars in illicit assets.

Just keep telling yourself, comrade, it's not international corruption. It's all in the good name of globalization and "shaping election results.".

2) Holy Angels Catholic Academy

Danny Fitzpatrick was a lovable 13 year-old boy on Staten Island, New York. Danny also came from a loving family whose only mistake was to enroll him in Holy Angels Catholic Academy. Danny had been bullied for not fitting in, for "being weird." Peer pressure cost him his few friends. Complaints he'd made to the school's administrators fell on deaf ears.
So last Thursday, 13 year-old Danny committed suicide by hanging himself. And in his suicide note, he'd complained the school wasn't taking his bullying problem seriously. When the news broke about his suicide, the school piously churned out a bunch of the usual nothing, saying,

In light of this tragedy we are reexamining all bullying prevention
policies and training. The principal, teachers, and staff of Holy Angels
Catholic Academy are heartbroken over the loss of Danny Fitzpatrick. We
take the issue of bullying very seriously and address every incident
that is brought to our attention.

No, it's not the policy that needs to be reexamined. It's the faculty that is supposed to implement and enforce those policies but isn't that needs to be reexamined. And since they're obviously not, then that blows out of the water your insistence of taking "very seriously and address(ing) every incident
that is brought to our attention." If your deeds matched your boilerplate, that boy would still be alive.

1) Donald Trump

When even a hard line right wing nut job like Hugh Hewitt tries to help you along and suggest you were being sarcastic in saying Obama founded ISIS, then perhaps you should listen. But then again, Donald Trump was never much good at listening to anyone but himself and the equally loony voices in his double-woven head. Because, in the words of the Rude Pundit:

Of course, what Trump did by making that incredibly stupid and reckless allegation then say on successive days he meant it literally, then was being sarcastic and then he wasn't being all that sarcastic, he'd painted a target on the President's back for the dubious edification of the Islamophobic screaming hordes that make up his base. And, incredibly, this clarification of his revisionist history that seems to forget Bush was the one who invaded Iraq came the day after being talked to by the Secret Service for his equally reckless call to "2nd Amendment people" to do something about Hillary Clinton. Meaning that with these two statements that bring to mind regicidal ancient Rome, Trump's single-handedly trying to turn the Party of Lincoln into the Party of Brutus.